Peer-to-peer lender Zopa has passed the $1 billion mark in loans it has made, the U.K. company said on Monday (Aug. 11). A quarter of the money (£148m) was in loans that have been made just in 2014. That equates to 92 percent year-over-year growth as of July.
Zopa said it has made 104,000 loans since it launched in 2005, and has returned £37 million ($62 million) in interest to its lenders. The company also claims the lowest default rate of any U.K. bank or peer-to-peer lender.
Zopa currently has more than 57,000 active lenders — on average, a 47-year-old who has and has lent £5,710 ($9,600) — and more than 63,000 active borrowers in the U.K., making up just over a 1 percent share of the personal loans market. The average borrower is 40 years old and borrows £5,500 ($9,300).
Over the past nine years, the most popular use for Zopa-approved loans has been purchase of a car (40 percent), followed by home improvements (20 percent) and debt consolidation (20 percent). Zopa doesn’t charge early repayment penalties, and a third of Zopa borrowers pay their loans back early.
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